Muslim Studies of Hinduism? A Reconsideration of Arabic and Persian Translations from Indian Languages

Muslim Studies of Hinduism? A Reconsideration of Arabic and Persian Translations from Indian Languages

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Carl Ernst

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2003

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Iranian Studies

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Iranian Studies, volume 36, number 2, June 2003Carl W. ErnstMuslim Studies of Hinduism? A Reconsideration of Arabic and PersianTranslations from Indian LanguagesWHAT HAVE BEEN THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE ISLAMIC AND HINDUreligious traditions? Variations on this question inevitably come to mind in any attemptto assess the significance of the past dozen centuries of South Asian civilization, duringwhich time significant Muslim populations have played important roles, interactingwith Indian religions and cultures from a variety of perspectives. Although frequentlythis kind of question is posed in terms of assumptions about the immutable essences ofIslam and Hinduism, I would like to argue that this kind of approach is fundamentallymisleading, for several reasons. First, this approach is ahistorical in regarding religionsas unchanging, and it fails to account for the varied and complex encounters, relationships,and interpretationsth at took place between many individualM uslims and Hindus.Second, it assumes that there is a single clear concept of what a Hindu is, although thisnotion is increasingly coming into question; considerable evidence has accumulated toindicate that external concepts of religion, first from post-Mongol Islamicate culture,and eventually from European Christianity in the colonial period, were brought to bearon a multitude of Indian religious traditions to create a single concept of Hinduism.Third, there is a significant difference between medieval Islamicate and modern Europeanapproaches to Indian religion and culture. It is the thesis of this paper that,although many Muslims over the centuries engaged in detailed study of particularaspects of Indian culture, which may appear in a modern perspective as religious, therewas for the most part no compelling interest among Muslims in constructing a conceptof a single Indian religion, which would correspond to the modern concept ofHinduism. While this thesis could be tested in many different contexts, the translationsfrom Sanskrit into Arabic and Persian offer a particularly promising ground forexamining Muslim approaches to Indian culture.The cultural movement between the Indic and Islamicate civilizations has spannedwell over a millenium. The translation movement between the Indian and Islamic culturesis still rarely studied, though as a cross-cultural event the movement from Sanskritinto Arabic and Persian is comparable in magnitude and duration to the other greatenterprises of cross-cultural translation (Greek philosophy into Arabic and Latin, Buddhismfrom Sanskrit into Chinese and Tibetan). The following sketch is offered to suggestnew lines of interpretationt, o clarify the significance of this translationm ovement.The impetus for establishing this taxonomy is a larger study in which I analyze thetranslations of a text on hatha yoga, The Pool of Nectar, into Arabic, Persian, Turkish,Carl W. Ernst is Zachary Smith Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.ISSN 0021-0862 print/ISSN 14754819 online/03/020173-23 C2003 The Society for Iranian Studies ^ Carfax PublishingDOI 10. 1080/021086032000062938 i Taylor & Frarcis Group174 Ernstand Urdu.' I should emphasize that the classification outlined here is still tentative,especially since the bulk of the Persian translations from Sanskrit still remain in uneditedmanuscripts. In most cases, little progress has been made since the work of turn-ofthe-century manuscript cataloguers.' This large field of research is therefore basicallyunexplored, and it is to be hoped that this study will encourage more work along similarlines.As a first analytical approach to the subject, I suggest that among the translationsfrom Indian languages into Arabic into Persian, four main categories of texts stand outas having special importance: 1) early Arabic and Persian translations on practical artsand sciences; 2) Persian translations of epics from the time of Akbar, having primarilypolitical significance; 3) Persian translations of mostly metaphysical and mystical textsfrom the time of Dara Shukuh; and 4) Persian translations of works on Hindu ritual andlaw commissioned by British colonial officials. To this list one may also add originalPersian works on Indian religions by Hindus as well as recent Indological studies byIranian scholars. As this division suggests, attitudes toward Indian religion as reflectedin these translations tended to be defined by the particular political and intellectualinterests of the translators, rather than by any internally generated sense of the coherenceof Indian religious traditions. I would argue that it is only in the fourth phase, inthe British colonial period, that Persian and Arabic translations from Indian languageswere viewed as representing Hindu religion as it is understood today.1.This study, entitled The Pool of Nectar: Muslim Interpreters of Yoga, is in preparation andshould go to press soon. My critical edition of the Arabic text, together with the principal Persiantranslation, will be published separately.2. For surveys, see HermannE the, "NeupersischeL itteratur,"d ) "Ubersetzungena us dem Sanskrit,"in Wilh. Geiger and Ernst Kuhn, ed., Grundriss der iranischen Philologie (Strassburg,1896-1904) 2: 352-55; A. B. M. Habibullah," MedievalI ndo-PersianL iteraturer elatingt o HinduScience and Philosophy, 1000-1800 A.D.," Indian Historical Quarterly 1 (1938): 167-81; M. A.Rahim, "Akbar and Translation Works," Journal of the Asiatic Society of Pakistan 10 (1965):101-19; N. S. Gorekar, "Persian Language and Sanskritic Lore," Indica 2 (1965): 107-19;Muhammad Bashir Husayn, "Mughliyya dawr mein Sanskrit awr cArabi ke farsi tarajim," inMaqbul Beg Badakhsani, ed., Thrfkh-i adabiyyat-i Musulmdndn-i Pakistan u Hind, vol. 4, part 2,F&rst adab (1526-1707) (Lahore, 1971), 774-804; Muhammad Akram Shah, "Dastanefi," inibid., 866-73; N. S. Shukla, "Persian Translations of Sanskrit Works," Indological Studies 3(1974): 175-91; FathullahM ujtabai," PersianT ranslationso f Hindu Religious Literature,"in FarhangMihr, ed., Yddndmah-Ai nkitfl Diiparin/Anquetil Duperron Bicentenary Memorial Volume(Tehran, 1351/1973), 13-24, with Persian translationi n Persian section, "Tarjuma-ha-yfi arsi-yialar-i dini-yi Hinduvan," 76-106; idem, "Persian Hindu Writings: Their Scope and Relevance,"in his Aspects of Hindu Muslim Cultural Relations (New Delhi, 1978), 60-91; Shriram Sharma, ADescriptive Bibliography of Sanskrit Works in Persian, ed. Muhammad Ahmad (New Delhi,1982). The most important catalogues include Hermann Eth6, Catalogue of Persian Manuscriptsin the India Office Library (Oxford, 1903; reprint London, 1980), and Charles Rieu, Catalogue ofthe Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum 3 vols. (London, 1879-83; reprint, London,1966). Many important items are also listed in D. N. Marshall, Mughals in India, a BibliographicalSurvey, vol. 1, Manuscripts (Bombay, 1967). I have not seen Muhammad Riza Jalali Na'ini,Tarjuma-ha-yifarsra z kutub-is anskrU(tD elhi, 1973).Muslim Studies of Hinduism? 175Practical Arts and SciencesThe initial interest of the early Arabic translators from Sanskrit was primarily in scientificworks on mathematics, medicine, toxicology, astronomy, and alchemy; a number ofworks of this kind were translated during the heyday of the Abbasid caliphate in theninth and tenth centuries, apparently by Indians residing in Baghdad, though few ofthese survive.3 A well-known result of this scientific exchange was the transmission ofIndian numerals and the zero notation, later known in Europe as Arabic numbers. Thesame practical emphasis was also characteristic of some of the early translations fromSanskrit into Persian commissioned by the Turkish sultans of Delhi. As an example,when Sultan Firuz ibn Tuqhluq besieged the hill fortress of Nagarkot (Kangra) in 1365,his army plundered nearby temples and acquired a library of thirteen hundred Sanskritbooks. Out of this booty, only a single work, "a book on natural philosophy and auguriesand omens," was translated into Persian by a court poet, under the title DaliVil-iF7riz ShiihT (The Demonstrations of King Firuz); from the description it seems that thiswork contained elements of astronomy and divination. Although this particular treatiseseems not to have survived, a historian of the Mughal period who saw it commentedthat it was a useful work, "containing various philosophical facts both of science andpractice."4 Bada3uni, who perused the same work in Lahore in 1591, found it "moderatelygood, neither free from beauties nor defects," and he commented that a number ofworks had been translated from Sanskrit during the time of Firuz, mostly on "profitless"subjects such as music and dance.5 In all these instances there seems to be little interestin the religions of India, at least in comparison with the practical sciences. The story ofSultan Firuz indicates that, despite the possibility of access to a full range of Sanskrittexts, the specific interests of potential patrons of translation remained quite limited interms of subject matter.6This practical trend in Muslim attitudes toward Indian thought seems to have beenthe rule, though there were some exceptions. Stories of Buddhist origin, particularly thecycle later known in Europe as Barlaam and loasaphath, were related by Muslimauthors such as the tenth-century Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-safa'), who employed3. See The Fihrist of al-Nadtm: A Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture, ed. and trans.Bayard Dodge, 2 vols. (New York, 1970), 2: 589-90 (Arabic translators from Sanskrit), 645(astronomical and medical texts), 736 (occultism), 826-36 (fragmentary survey of Indian religions).A list of all known titles and manuscripts of Indian texts translated into Arabic is found inFuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1969-), 3: 187-202(medicine); 4: 118-19 (alchemy); 5: 191-202 (mathematics); 6: 116-21 (astronomy); 7: 89-97(astrology).4. NizamuddinA hmad, The Tabaqdt-i-Akbarlt, rans. B. De, Bibliotheca Indica, 300 (Calcutta,191 1; reprint Calcutta, 1973), 1: 249.5. cAbdu-'l-Qddiri bn-i-Mul5k5hdha l-Bad5oni, Muntakhabu-'t-tawar&kthra, ns. George S. A.Ranking, Biblioteca Indica, 97 (Calcutta), 1: 332.6. On the basis of Jain records, Mahdi Husain has suggested that Jain scholars writing in Sanskritwere the "philosophers"w ith whom Sultan Muhammadi bn Tughluq (d. 1351) associated. Ifcorrect, this would still indicate a fairly specialized interest in a minority tradition that is nottoday considered part of the "Hindu" fold. See Mahdi Husain, Tughluq Dynasty (Calcutta, 1963),315-39.176 Ernstthese stories particularly for moralizing purposes.7 The only early Muslim scholar toshow sustained interest in Indian religious and philosophical texts was the great scientistand philosopher al-Biruni. He translated a number of Sanskrit works into Arabic (includingselections from Patainjali'sY ogasuitrasa nd the Bhagavad Grta)i n connection withhis encyclopedic treatise on India.8 Although the authors of Arabic books on sects andheresies, such as al-Shahrastani( d. 1153), generally devoted a section or a few pages tothe religions of India, no other Arabic writer followed in al-Biruni's footsteps as a specialiston Indian religion and philosophy.9 Wilhelm Halbfass has attempted an assessmentof al-Biruni's contribution, praising him for his fair and objective approach toIndia:A clear awareness of his own religious horizon as a particular context ofthought led him to perceive the "othemess" of the Indian religious philosophicalcontext and horizon with remarkable clarity . . . Unlike Megasthenes,Biruni did not "translate"t he names of foreign deities; nor did he incorporatethem into his own pantheon, and of course he did not possess the amorphous"openness"o f syncretism and the search for "common denominators."T hat iswhy he could comprehend and appreciate the other, the foreign as such, thematizingand explicating in an essentially new manner the problems ofintercultural understanding and the challenge of "objectivity" when shiftingfrom one tradition to another, from one context to another.'0Halbfass's admiration for the scholarly achievement of al-Biruni is certainly justified,but these remarks call for some qualification. First of all, as stated earlier, al-Biruni's perception of the "otherness" of Indian thought was not just hermeneuticalclarity with regard to a pre-existing division; it was effectively the invention of the conceptof a unitary Hindu religion and philosophy. Furthermore, Halbfass's praise of al-Biruni's bold proclamation of "otherness" obscures the fact that he had to engage in a7. Ian Richard Netton, Muslim Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought of the Brethrenof Purity (Ikhwan al-safaV) (London, 1982), 89-94.8. Eduard Sachau, trans., Alberuni's India (London, 1888; reprint, Delhi, 1964); Hellmut Ritter,ed., "Al-Biriini's Ubersetzung des Yoga-satra des Patafijali," Oriens 9 (1956): 165-200;Bruce B. Lawrence, "The Use of Hindu Religious Texts in al-Birulni's India with Special Referenceto Patanjali's Yoga-Sutras," in The Scholar and the Saint: Studies in Commemoration ofAbu'l Rayhan al-B frinr and Jalal al-Din al-Ramr, ed. Peter J. Chelkowski (New York, 1975),29-48; Shlomo Pines and Tuvia Gelblum, "Al-BirFini'sA rabic Version of Patanijali'sY ogasutra:A Translation of his First Chapter and a Comparison with Related Sanskrit Texts," Bulletin of theSchool of Oriental and African Studies (BSOAS) 29 (1966): 302-25; idem, "Al-Birtni's ArabicVersion of Pata-njali's Yogasutra: A Translation of the Second Chapter and a Comparison withRelated Texts," BSOAS 40 (1977): 522-49; idem, "Al-Bir-ini's Arabic Version of Pata-njali'sYogasatra: A Translation of the Third Chapter and a Comparison with Related Texts," BSOAS 46(1983): 258-304.9. Bruce B. Lawrence, Shahrastdnr on the Indian Religions (The Hague, 1976); idem, "al-Birfini and Islamic Mysticism," in Al-Birrni Commemorative Volume, ed. Hakim MohammedSaid (Karachi, 1979), 372; idem, "Biruini,A bti Rayhan. viii. Indology," Encyclopaedia Iranica(Elr) 4: 285-87.10. Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding (Albany, 1988), 26-27.Muslim Studies of Hinduism? 177remarkablyc omplex interpretationo f his sources with many "Islamizing"t ouches. Histranslation of Patainjali's Yogasutras was based on a combination of the original textplus a commentary that is still not identified, all rephrased by al-Biruni into a questionand-answer format. Like the translators of polytheistic Greek texts into Arabic, al-Biruni rendered the Sanskrit "gods" (deva) with the Arabic terms for "angels"(mala'ika) or "spiritual beings" (riiIhniyyat), surely a theological shift amounting to"translation." He was, moreover, convinced on a deep level that Sanskrit texts weresaturated with recognizable philosophical doctrines of reincarnation and union withGod, which required comparative treatment: "For this reason their [the Indians'] talk,when it is heard, has a flavour composed of the beliefs (caq&'id) of the ancient Greeks,of the Christian sects, and of the Sufi leaders."" Consequently, al-Biruni made deliberateand selective use of terms derived from Greek philosophy, heresiography, andSufism to render the Sanskrit technical terms of yoga. But al-Biruni's rationalisticapproach to Indian religions remained isolated and almost forgotten, while his Arabicversion of Patafnjalwi as describedb y at least one readera s incomprehensible.'2T here issome superficial reference to al-Biruni's work on India and the Patanijalti ranslationi nthe Bayan al-adyan or The Explanation of Religions of Abu al-Macali, written inGhazna in 1092.13 It appears, however, that the principal readers of al-Biruni's work onIndia were interested in it mainly from a historical and administrative point of view; theworld-historian and Mongol minister Rashid al-Din (d. 1318) drew extensively on al-Biruni's geographical information, while the Mughal wazir Abu al-Fazl cAllami (d.1602) apparently had al-Biruni's work in mind when he compiled a detailed but uncriticalsurvey of Indian thought in his Persian gazetteer of Akbar's Indian empire.'4 Today,both al-Biruni's work on India and his translationo f Pata-njalei xist in unique manuscripts,suggesting an extremely limited circulation. I would like to suggest that al-Biruni's concept of a unified Indian religion, as a polar opposite to Islam, lay forgottenuntil it was resurrected in an even more radical form by European scholarship a centuryago; the growth of the Muslim concept of Hindu religion took place largely withoutreference to al-Biruni. Since Sachau's edition (1886) and translation (1888) of al-Biruni's work on India were undertaken at the suggestion of the board of the OrientalTranslation Fund, and were entirely subsidized by Her Majesty's India Office, it istempting to locate this work's historical importance primarily within the larger political11. Ritter, "Al-BirOni's Ubersetzung," 167; Pines and Gelblum, "Al-Birini's Arabic Version,"309-10.12. Pines and Gelblum, "Al-Birlini's Arabic Version," 302, n. 1, quoting the incomprehensionof Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Ghazanfar al-Tibrizi; Fathullah Mujtabai, "Al Biruni and India:The First Attempt to Understand," in his Aspects of Hindu Muslim Cultural Relations, 51, n. 52,cites reactions to the Pata-njalit ranslation by Persian authors Abu al-Macali in his Bayan aladyaJna,nd Mir Findiriskii n his translationo f the Yoga viasista.13. H. Masse, trans., "L'Expose des religions," Revue de l'Histoire des Religions 94 (1926):17-75; A. Christensen, "Remarques critiques sur le Kitib bayani-l-adyan d'Abu'l-Ma'all,' LeMonde Oriental 5-6 (1911-12): 205-16; Lawrence, Shahrastant, 89-90.14. Halbfass,29-30 (Rashid al-Din), 32-33 (Abu al-Fazl); Abu'l-Fazl cAllami, The A'rn-iAkbarr, trans. H.S. Jarrett, ed. Jadunath Sarkar (2nd ed., Calcutta, 1948; reprint New Delhi, 1978),3: vii-ix, 141-358.178 Ernstconcerns of colonial Orientalism.'5 Al-Biruni's rationalistic and reifying approach toreligion, which had practically no impact on medieval Islamic thought, is much morepalatable to the modern taste, and this explains his popularity today.Historical and Political TextsThe second large category of translations from Sanskrit consists of the mostly epic textsrendered into Persian during the time of Akbar. This phase of translation was dominatedby historical and political considerations. Most modern discussions of the Mughalperiod, which speak confidently about translation of Sanskrit religious texts into Persian,fail to notice any ambiguity in the phrase "religious text." Today, with a comfortablysolid notion of Hindu religious texts in place in the curriculum, we have no hesitationin treatinge pic works like the Mahabharata and the Ramaiyainas religious. Nonetheless,the prominent courtly and martial features of these texts furnish the occasion forquestioning the assumption that the Mughals viewed their contents as religious. As wehave seen, the early translations from Sanskrit into Arabic and Persian focused primarilyon practical arts and sciences. Patrons of Persian learning in the later Indo-Muslimcourts were also interested in translations on practical subjects, such as erotics, mathematics,astronomy, medicine, farriery, and in particular music.'6 Rarely, we hear of pre-Mughal translations of epic texts from Sanskrit into Persian. As early as the eleventhcentury C.E., a partial Persian translation of an old recension of the Mahabharata wasachieved, and in the fourteenthc entury C.E.t he Bhagavata Purfrnaw as translated.'7T heruler of Kashmir, Zayn al-cAbidin (d. 1470), had the Mahiibharata translated into Persian,along with the Sanskrit metrical history of Kashmir, Ruijataranginr;h e was,moreover, a patron of Sanskrit literature, and he commissioned the Sanskrit historianSrivara to translate Jami's romantic Persian epic on Joseph and Zulaykha into Sanskrit.'8 But the remarkably high number of translations of the epics commissioned bythe Mughal emperors suggest that they have a special importance connected with thepolitical posture of that dynasty. In this connection it should be recalled that collections15. Sachau, trans., Alberuni's India, Preface, 1.16. See, for instance, works on erotics and farriery translated from Sanskrit to Persian anddedicated to CAbd Allah Qutbshah of Golconda (d. 1672) and Muzaffar Shah II of Gujarat (d.1526), listed by Marshall, 227, no. 792; 548, no. 621A. On Indian music see the numeroustranslations listed by EthWn, os. 2008-33, and in particularH usaini, Indo-Persian Literature,227-47, for a detailed description of the Lahjat-i Sikandar Shaht. For further examples oftranslations on practical subjects see also C. A. Storey, Persian Literature 2: 4-5, 17, 26(mathematics); 38, 93 (astronomy); 231, 253-54, 266 (medicine); 394-96 (farriery); 412-22(music); 439 no. 13 (alchemy).17. On the early Mahabharata version see J. T. Reinaud, Fragments arabes et persans iniditsrelatifs a l'Inde, anterieurement au XIe siecle (Paris, 1845; reprint Amsterdam, 1976), 17-29. TheBhagavata Purana translation is described by J. Aumer, Die persischen Handschriften der K.Hof- und Staatsbibliotheki n Miunchen(M unich, 1866), cited by EthWn, o. 1952, col. 1091.18. Syeda Bilqis Fatema Husaini, A Critical Study of Indo-Persian Literature during Sayyidand Lodi Period, 1414-1526 A.D. (Delhi, 1988), 15, 85; Richard Schmidt, Das Kathakautukamdes (7rivara verglichen mit Dschami's Jusuf und Zuleikha (Kiel, 1893); idem, Srivara'sKathakautukam, die geschichte von Joseph in Persisch-Indischem Gewande, Sanskrit undDeutsch (Kiel, 1898).Muslim Studies of Hinduism? 179of Sanskrit narrative literature, principally the Panicatantra and the Hitopadesa, hadbeen translated into middle Persian during the Sasanian period; when stories from thistradition were later put into Arabic by Ibn al-Muqaffac (d. 759) under the title Kalila waDimna, they were valued in Arabic literature primarily for their political significance."9The political context for the Mughal interest in Sanskrit lies in the imperialprogram devised by Akbar and followed in varying degrees by his successors. Althoughearlier writers on the Mughals have treated this interest primarily as an indication ofliberal personal religious inclinations on the part of Akbar, this romantic conceptionshould yield to a more realistic analysis of policy aspects.0 It is highly anachronistic toread an Enlightenment virtue of "tolerance" into the religious politics of the Mughal era.The original precedent for Akbar's policies of patronage of multiple religions isprobably best sought in the Mongol era, when the prudent insurance policy of the"pagan" Mongols gave generous treatment to Buddhists, Christians, Taoists, andMuslims. Akbar's family conceived of their regime as a continuation of the neo-Mongolempire of Timur (Tamerlane); like Timur, Akbar was furnished with a genealogy thatincluded Chingiz Khan, but in his case it was extended to include the Mongol sungoddessAlanquwa. The symbolism of world domination inherent in the Mongolpolitical tradition was given an ingenious philosophical and mystical twist in thewritings of Akbar's minister Abu al-Fazl, who interpreted Akbar's role in terms of theNeoplatonic metaphysics of Ishraqi Illuminationism and the Sufi doctrine of the PerfectMan. This metaphysical apparatus was invoked not merely for its own philosophicalconsistency, but essentially to undergird the authority of Akbar in an eclectic fashion.2'While coinage with Sanskrit formulas and patronage of different religious institutions(including "Hindu" ones) was a feature of most Indo-Muslim regimes, what distinguishedthe Mughals under Akbar was their attempt to refocus all religious enthusiasmof whatever backgroundo nto the person of the emperor.22A kbar's sponsorshipo fthe translation of Sanskrit works was part of the overall literary phase of his reign,which included the regular reading aloud of works from the canon of Persian court literature,history, and Sufism. He assigned to the task a number of courtiers who werescholars of Persian but presumably ignorant of Sanskrit; they were assisted, however,by Sanskrit pandits, so that, from a literary point of view, the translation processprobably involved a considerable amount of oral explication in vernacular Hindi prior tothe composition of the Persian "translation."S ome translators,l ike Bada'uni, assisted inthis project much against their own inclinations. The extent of the sustained translationenterprise can be judged from the numerous manuscript copies, some lavishly illus-19. WalterH ardingM aurer," Paricatantra,E"n cyclopediao f Religion 9: 161-64.20. See most recently John F. Richards, The Mughal Empire, vol. I.5 of The New CambridgeHistory of India (Cambridge, 1993), 36-40, 44- 47.21. See the stimulating essay of Peter Hardy, "Abul Fazl's Portrait of the Perfect Padshah: APolitical Philosophy for Mughal India-or a Personal Puff for a Pal?" in Christian W. Troll, ed.,Islam in India, Studies and Commentaries, vol. 2, Religion and Religious Education, (New Delhi,1985), 114-37.22. For coinage with Sanskrit and patronage of non-Muslim religious institutions, see myEternal Garden: Mysticism, History, and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center, (Albany, 1992),47-53. On Akbar as the center of all religions, see Harbans Mukhia, Historians andHistoriography During the Reign of Akbar (New Delhi, 1976), 70.180 Ernsttrated, and the repeated revisions and new translations (in both poetry and prose) ofparticularly valued texts.23 In political terms, the inclusion and translation of Sanskritworks was designed to reduce intellectual provincialism and linguistic divisivenesswithin the empire.24S anskrita nd Hindi romances, such as the story of Nala and Damayanti,seem to have been integrated into a literary continuum along with Near Easternfables like the story of Majnun and Layla or the tales of Amir Hamza. Abu al-Fazlappears to regard the epic Mahdbhdrata and Ramayana primarily as histories of ancientIndia with biographical and philosophical overtones. This even holds true of Puranicextensions of the epic, such as the Harivamsa, which Abu al-Fazl describes only as abiography of Krishna. Akbar himself entitled the Persian translation of theMah4ibh&rataas the Razmnamah or The Book of War, underlining its character as amartial epic.Abu al-Fazl's complicated vision of the purpose of the Mahabharata translation isworth examining in detail. On the one hand, he observes that the epic does containremarkable philosophical and cosmological perspectives of great complexity. Abu al-Fazl notes that at least thirteen different Indian schools of thought are mentioned in thetext.25O n the other hand, he points out that a quartero f its 100,000 verses are devotedto the martial epic of the war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, making it a vademecum for the conduct of war and battle, and much of the remainder is "advice, sermons,stories, and explanations of past romance and battle (bazm o razm)."'26 In onelong passage in his introduction to the Persian translation of the Mahabharata, Abu al-Fazl recounts a series of justifications for the translation project, all couched as anexpansion of his encomium to his patron Akbar, who is eulogized in the most hyperbolicof terms. Abu al-Fazl outlines five major objectives: reducing sectarian fightingamong both Muslims and Hindus; eroding the authority of all religious specialists overthe masses; deflating Hindu bigotry towards Muslims by revealing questionable Hindudoctrines; curing Muslim provincialism by exposing Muslims to cosmologies muchvaster than official sacred history; and providing access to a major history of the pastfor the edification and guidance of rulers (the traditional ethical justification forhistory). This passage is translated here in full:(1) Inasmuch as the fine method of physicians of the body in physical remediesis always such (as the body), the pleasing disposition of the physicians of thesoul will be according to a higher method. So why should this not be the noblenature of the chief healer of chronic illnesses of the soul (i.e., Akbar)? Whenwith his perfect comprehension he found that the squabbling of sects of theMuslim community (millat-i Muhammadi) and the quarreling of the Hindusincreased, and their refutation of each other grew beyond bounds, his subtle23. John Seyller, Workshop and Patron in Mughal India: The Freer Ramayana and otherIllustrated Manuscripts of CAbd al-Rahim (Zurich, 1999).24. Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, Akbar & Religion (Delhi, 1989), 180-81.25. Abu al-Fazl, in Muhammad Riza Jalali Na3ini and Narayan Shankar Shukla, eds.,Mah,ibhdrat, buzurgtarrn manzama-i kuhnah-i mawjad-i jahan, Persian trans. from Sanskrit byMir Ghiyas al-Din cAli Qazwini Naqib Khan et al., Hindshinasi, 15-18, 4 vols. (Tehran,1358-59/1979-81), 1: xx.26. Ibid., 1: xl-xli.Muslim Studies of Hinduism? 181mind resolved that the famous books of each group should be translated intodiverse tongues. Thus both factions, by the blessing of the holy words of therevered perfect one of the age (again, Akbar), holding back from excessivefault-finding and perversity, should become seekers of God. Having becomeaware of each other's virtues and vices, they should make laudable efforts torectify their own states.(2) Likewise, in every group there are some who account themselves religiousauthorities, on the basis of extreme, frivolous, and ignorant theories that havebeen advanced. They have made representations that are far from the royalroad of firm wisdom, with frauds and deceptions that are memorable for themasses. These unfortunate deceivers, whether from ignorance or irreligiousness,confirm themselves in a different style in accordance with their selfishand lustful goals, having concealed the books of the ancients, the advice of therighteous, the sayings of the wise, and the weighty deeds of predecessors.Whenever the books of both factions are translated with a clear expression,understandable to the masses yet pleasing to the elite, the tabula rasa of themasses attains reality, and is rescued from the idiocies of fools pretending to bewise, thus reaching the goal of reality.Therefore the sublime decree went forth concerning the book of theMahabharata, written by masters of genius, containing most of the principlesand applications of the beliefs of the Brahmins of India, than which there is nobook more famous, greater, or more detailed among this group. The wise ofboth factions and the linguists of both groups, by way of friendship and agreement,should sit down in one place, and should translate it into a popularexpression, with the knowledge of judicious experts and just officials.(3) Likewise, the irreligious partisans and credulous leaders of India have abelief in their own religion that goes beyond all measure, and whether fromlack of discrimination or ingrained injustice, they consider the embellishmentsof their beliefs to be free from error, taking the path of blind imitation. Havingmade certain representations to the artless masses, they are prevented fromrealizing their goals and become rooted in false beliefs. They regard the groupof those who are connected to the religion of Muhammad (din-i Ahmadi) asutterly foolish, and they refute this group ceaselessly, although they areunaware of its noble goals and special sciences.Therefore, the subtle intellect (of Akbar) desired that the book of theMah,ibhdrata, which contains the jewels of the goals of this group, should betranslated with a clear expression, so that deniers should restrain their denialand refrain from intemperance, and so that the artless believers, having becomesomewhat embarrassed by their beliefs, should become seekers of God.(4) Likewise, the common people among the Muslims, who have not read wellthe pages of scriptures and religious books, and who have not opened theadmonition-seeing eye to the diverse histories of the age belonging to the Chinese,the Indians, etc., and who have not even read the words of the great onesof their own religion, such as Imam Jacfar Sadiq, Ibn cArabi, and others,believe that the beginning of humanity was some seven thousand years ago.They consider the scientific realities and intellectual subtleties that are famousand well-known among the peoples of the world as the products of the thinking182 Ernstof the men of the past seven thousand years. Therefore the beneficent mind (ofAkbar) decided that this book, which contains the explanation of the antiquityof the universe and its beings, and is even totally occupied with the eternity ofthe world and its inhabitants, should be translated into a quickly understoodlanguage, so that this group favored by divine mercy should become somewhatinformed and retreat from this distasteful belief (in the recent creation of theworld). It will become clear that these subtle sciences and subtle understandingshave no obvious end, and these precious jewels of wisdom have no beginning.(5) Likewise, the minds of most people, especially the great kings, love to listento histories, for the wisdom that is contained in the divine makes the scienceof history attractive to their hearts, for it supplies admonition for the wise.Taking counsel from the past and counting it as bounty for the present time,they may expend their precious hours in that which is pleasing to God. Thereforekings are most in need of listing to the tales of their predecessors. Thus thewisdom-nourishing mind (of Akbar) had complete oversight on the translationof this book, which contains illustrious examples of this science. For this reasona group was gathered together of wise men who know languages, distinguishedfor broad wisdom and wide reading, far from partisanship and contentiousnessand close to justice and equity, and they translated the aforementionedbook with deliberation and penetration, with clear expressions andfamiliar terms. Different groups of people love to take copies to different cornersof the world.27Abu al-Fazl was interested in the philosophical and religious content of the epic,from the perspective of an enlightened intellectual whose cosmopolitan vision hadmoved him out of a strictly defined Islamic theological perspective. But I think it is fairto say that this intellectual project was thoroughly subordinated to the political aim ofmaking Akbar's authority supreme over all possible rivals in India, including all religiousauthorities. The translation of the Sanskrit epics was not an academic enterprisecomparable to the modem study of religion; it was instead part of an imperial effort tobring both Indic and Persianate culture into the service of Akbar.The historiographical continuity between Sanskrit and Persian literary traditionscan be glimpsed further in the case of Tahir Muhammad Sabzawari, an official in theemploy of Akbar, who in 1011/1602-3 made abridged prose translations of theBhagavata Purana, the Mahiabhiirataa, nd its appendix the Harivamsa.28F our yearslater, when he wrote a world history in Persian called Rawzat al-tahirin or The Gardenof the Pure, one of the five sections contained Indian historical traditions culled fromthe Mahdbh4rata and other Sanskrit epics.29 The only translated text that Abu al-Fazlspecifically refers to as scriptural or religious is an incomplete version of the Atharva27. Abu al-Fazl, Mahabhazrat, 1: xviii-xx. In translating the third sentence of this passage, Ihave emended the printed text to read juhuid-i hunaid ("the quarreling of the Hindus") instead ofjuhid u hunad. Also, in the first sentence of the second paragraph under point (3), I read raCsinstead of ragh? (meaning ra c wa 5amtn, i.e., jewels).28. Eth6, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts, no. 1955.29. Marshall, Mughals in India, no. 1768.Muslim Studies of Hinduism? 183Veda, "which, according to the Hindus, is one of the four divine books."30 No copy ofthis survives, however. Another popular Sanskrit text, the Singhizsan Battfsr or Thirty-Two Tales of the Throne, concerned the fortunes of the ancient Indian king Vikramaditya;one of the Persian translations of this work presented to Akbar was entitledShahnaimaho r The Book of Kings, the very same as the title of Firdawsi's epic on Persiankingship.3' The evidence suggests that one of Akbar's purposes was the absorptionof Indian traditions of kingship into a form that he could take advantage of. One of thelikely political fruits of the translation project was the rumor, noticed by the Europeantraveller Oranus, that Akbar was the tenth incarnation of Vishnu.32 Another piece ofsymbolic fallout was the custom of weighing the emperor in gold, which, as Abu al-Fazlnoted, was a custom that Indian tradition associated with both beatitude and universalmonarchy.33P erhaps most importantly, Akbar's project succeeded in permitting theinterweaving of two historical narratives. Many Persian world histories and histories ofMughal India continued to portray a single line of political authority drawn exclusivelythrough Muslim rulers, back through the sultans of Delhi to their Central Asian andIranian predecessors. But a significant number of Indo-Persian dynastic histories wouldplace the later Mughals in a series of "the kings of India" beginning with Yudhishthiraand the heroes of the Mahabhhrata.4 In the same vein, Firishta (d. ca. 1633) prefaceshis famous history of Indo-Muslim dynasties with an account of Indian epic historydrawn from the Mahabhhrata that is completely interwoven with the heroic cycles ofthe Persian Book of Kings.35 Eventually, as a result of this process, the Ranas ofUdaipur and the Sisodia Rajputs, noble Hindu houses in Mughal service, adoptedgenealogies traced to Persian kings.36Metaphysical and Mystical TextsAfter the political phase of translation we can distinguish a third group of Persiantranslations from the Sanskrit, in this case focusing on works that may be called metaphysicalor mystical. This type of translation typically mediated Vedantic philosophicaland mystical texts through a loose oral commentary provided by Indian pandits; thiswas rephrased in the Sufi technical vocabulary, presenting the texts as a kind of gnosis(Persian macrifat), and frequently amplifying their contents by the insertion of Persianmystical verses. Many Sanskrit works were translated by members of the circle of30. Abu al-Fazl, The A'Tn-i Akbarr, 3: 110-12. This translation, entitled Atharban in Persian,was entrusted to Bada'uni, but he abandoned it after failing to find a competent pandit.31. Marshall, Mughals in India, no. 384.32. J. Talboys, ed., Early Travels in India (16th & 17th Centuries) (Calcutta, 1864; reprintDelhi, 1974), 78.33. Abu al-Fazl, The A'rn-i Akbarr, 3: 307. For the practice of weighing the emperor, seeMubarak Ali, The Court of the Great Mughuls, Based On Persian Sources (Lahore, 1986), 51-53.34. Storey, Persian Literarture, 1: 133 ff. (general histories), 1: 442 ff. (histories of India).35. Mahomed Kasim Ferishta, History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, Till theYear A.D. 1612, trans. J. Briggs, 4 vols. (London, 1829; reprint ed., Lahore, 1977),1: xlv-lxiii.36. James Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajast'han, or The Central and Western Rajpoots ofIndia, 2 vols. (London, 1829-32; reprint, London, 1914), 1: 192.184 ErnstAkbar's great-grandson Dara Shukuh (d. 1659). Banwali Das, also known as Wali Ram(d. 1667-68), an accomplished poet and historian in Dara Shukuh's service, produced aPersian translation of Prabhodacandrodaya, a Vedantic theological allegory in dramaticform composed by Krishna Das for the eleventh-century Chandella king Kirtivarman.This translation was entitled Gulzar-i hal yii tulac-i qamar-i macrifat, meaning TheRose-garden of Ecstasy, or the Rising of the Moon of Gnosis; Banwali Das regarded thetext as a veritable "bouquet of reality and gnosis." In describing the genesis of the originaltext, Banwali Das related it to classical Indian metaphysical works, calling the latter"books of Sufism and unity (tasawwuf wa tawhWd)a"nId "texts of Sufism."" It is alsolikely that Banwali Das had a hand in a translation of the shorter version of the YogaViasistha, a treatise on Vedantic metaphysics that employs narrative to explore thenature of illusion and reality; this was commissioned by Dara Shukuh because of hisdissatisfaction with earlier versions.38 Another scholar in the service of Dara Shukuh,Chandarbhan Barahman (d. 1657-8), translated a Vedantic work of Sankara, the Atmaviiiasa,under the title Naizuk khayailat or Subtle Imaginings.39 Both of these Hindumunshrs (or scribes) were intensively involved in the Persianate culture of the Mughalcourt, and both wrote Persian poetry in the Sufi mystical style; Banwali Das even tookinstruction from Dara Shukuh's Sufi master Mulla Shah, and in his translation workfrom Sanskrit he was forced to rely on the oral Hindi commentary of a well-known pandit.There were other contemporary students of Indian mysticism outside the circle ofDara Shukuh, such as 'Abd al-Rahman Chishti (d. 1683), who produced a Sufi interpretationof the Bhagavad GUtd in a text called Mir'at al-haqiViq or The Mirror ofRealities.'0In addition to translations, one may include in the metaphysical category severaloriginal Persian treatises by Muslim authors from different historical periods, whoexplored questions raised by Vedantic texts and related them to Islamicate philosophicaland mystical themes. An early example of this kind of text is Fayzi's Shdriq al-macrifator The Illuminator of Gnosis, which dealt with topics taken from the Yoga Vasistha andthe Bhagavata Puraina; as the title suggests, this study was carried out in terms of categoriesderived from the Ishraqio r Illuminationistp hilosophy of Suhrawardi.4A' nother37. Gulzar-i hal ya tulac-i qamar-i macrifat/Prabodhachandrodaya, Persian trans. fromSanskrit by Banwali Das, ed. Tara Chand and Amir Hasan cAbidi (Aligarh, 1967), 6-7.38. Storey, Persian Literature, 1: 450-52. See Jag bashist/Yogavasistha, Persian trans. fromSanskrit by Banwali Das, ed. Tara Chand and Amir Hasan 'Abidi (Aligarh: Aligarh MuslimUniversity, 1967). See also Swami Venkatesananda, trans., The Concise Yoga Vasistha (Albany,1984); Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Dreams, Illusion and Other Realities (Chicago, 1984); andmy review of the latter in Journal of Asian and African Studies 20 (1985): 252-54.39. Storey, Persian Literature, 1: 570-72; this work was printed at Lahore in 1901. See alsoSharif Husain Qasemi, "tandra Bhan Barahman," EIr, 4: 755-56. Another unidentified work onHinduism by Chandarbani,n question and answer form, is found in Berlin. See Wilhelm Pertsch,Die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse der Koniglichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, IV, PersischenHandschriften (Berlin, 1888), no. 1081/2.40. Roderic Vassie, "'Abd al-Rahman Chishti & the Bhagavadgita: 'Unity of Religion' Theoryin Practice," in The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism, ed. Leonard Lewisohn (London, 1992),367-78.41. Ethe, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts, no. 1975.Muslim Studies of Hinduism? 185transitional text was an early version of the Yoga Viasistha translated by Nizam al-DinPanipati at the request of Prince Salim (later Jahangir) in 1597. This translation, whichDara Shukuh considered unreliable, was conceived as part of the encyclopedic collectionof edifying literature initiated by Akbar, and this particular work was regarded bySalim as falling into the same category with Sufi writings. Prince Salim remarked:When expert Arabic linguists, specialists in the different sciences, connoisseursof the arts of poetry and prose, historians, and Indian pundits entered the noblepresence in the style of his imperial majesty, . . . the Ma.navi of MawlanaRumi, the Zafarnamah [a history of Tamerlane], the memoirs of Babur, otherwritten histories, and collections of stories were read out in turn. Stories containingmorals and advice were conveyed to the august hearing. In these days,it is commanded that the book Yogavasistha, which contains Sufism (tasawwuf)and provides commentary on realities, diverse morals, and remarkableadvice, and which is one of the famous books of the Brahmins of India, shouldbe translated from the Sanskrit language to Persian.42The translator, however, felt that the Brahmins were closer to the ancient philosophers(i.e., the Greeks), and in any case he proclaimed his intention to gloss over anycontradictions, which must be purely verbal.Dara Shukuh himself supervised the Persian translation of fifty of the most importantIndian scriptures, the Upanishads, under the title Sirr-i Akbar or The Greatest Mystery.43 He is also credited with a translation of the Bhagavad Gitt entitled Ab-i zindagror The Water of Life, and a version of the Vedas.4 Another Sanskrit work translated forDara is the Astavakragtuz, a dialogue on liberation.5 What is most distinctive aboutDara Shukuh's approach to Indian texts is that he treats them as scripture, in the samecategory as the Psalms of David, the Gospel, and the Qur'an.' Sufis such as MirzaMazhar Jan-i Janan (d. 1781) also made this theological concession, but typically withthe stipulation that such ancient scriptures had been abrogated by the most recent reve-42. Jag bashisht, xxx.43. Erhard Bobel-Gross, Sirr-i akbar, Die Persische Upanishad Ubersetzung desMogulprinzen Darli Shikuhs (Marburg, 1962); a Hindi translation from the Persian is availableunder the title Sirre akabara, ed. Salama Mahaphuza (New Delhi, 1988).44. The ascription of this Gtta version to Dara Shukuh is described as doubtful by Storey,Persian Literature, 1: 996, n. 1. On the Veda translation, see the description of an autograph MS,Brij Mohan Birla Research Centre, Ujjain (connected with Vikram University, UjJain), cited inMotilal Banarsidass Newsletter (August 1983), 9.45. Pertsch, Die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse, no. 1077/3. Another copy is described by NazirAhmad, "Notes on Important Arabic and Persian MSS, found in Various Libraries in India-II,"Joumal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 14 (1918): cxcvix-ccclvi, esp. ccxxix, no. 24, dated 1676.46. Mir Findariski (d. 1640), who produced a translation of the Yogavasistha, showed a similarattitude in these verses: "These words are just like water to the world, pure and enlightening likethe Qur'an. / When you have passed through the Qur'an and Prophetic sayings, no one [else] hasthis way of speaking" (Jag bashisht, p. xxxi).186 Ernstlation, the Qur'an.47D ara Shukuh viewed the Upanishads as hermeneuticallyc ontinuouswith the Qur'an, providing an extended exposition of the divine unity that was onlybriefly indicated in the Arabic scripture. Among Dara Shukuh's original contributionswas a comparative study in Persian of the vocabulary of Hindu and Islamic esotericism,entitled Majmac al-bahrayn or The Meeting-place of the Two Oceans.48I t is interestingto note that this Persian work has been translatedi nto Arabic, Urdu, and Sanskrit.49T heMajmaC al-bahrayn has been unfortunately subjected to superficial interpretationsderiving from the inadequate edition and English translation of the text made byMahfuz-ul-Haq in 1929; luckily this has been superseded by a superior critical editionpublished by the Iranian scholar Jalali Na&ini in 1956, which was revised again in1987.50 Just to give one example of the problems in the first edition, Mahfuz-ul-Haqtranslated the title as The Mingling of the Two Oceans, intending it as a heavy-handedmetaphor for the literal syncretism, or mixing together, of two religions (Hinduism andIslam) conceived as oceans. He evidently was unaware, or considered it unimportant,that the phrase "the meeting-place of the two oceans" is Qur'anic (18:60). In the Qur'anthis phrase refers to the place where Moses found the water of eternal life and the mysteriousservant of God usually identified as Khizr.5" The allusion to the contrastbetween the legalistic prophet Moses and the esoteric gnostic Khizr forms the basis forDara Shukuh's description of the importance of this text.Dara Shukuh states that after having immersed himself in the truths of Sufi doctrine,he desired to comprehend the doctrines of the Indian monotheists (muwahhidun)and realizers of truth( muhaqqiqun)". Since [this book] is the meeting place of the realitiesand gnostic truthso f two groups that know God (haqq-shinazs)i,t is known as TheMeeting-place of the Two Oceans.... I have written this investigation in accordancewith my own mystical unveiling and experience (kashf wa zawq), for the sake of myown family, and I have nothing to do with the common people of either community."52This focus on esoteric truth, and the caustic disregard for external religion that was socharacteristic of Dara Shukuh, is described in a distorted fashion by Mahfuz-ul-Haq as47. Yohanan Friedmann, "Medieval Muslim Views of Indian Religions," Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 95 (1975): 214-2 1.48. See the studies of Jean Filliozat, "Sur les Contreparties indiennes du soufisme," JournalAsiatique 268 (1980): 259-73, and Daryush Shayegan, Les Relations de l'Hindouisme et duSoufisme d'apres le Majmac al-Bahrayn de Ddra Shokuh, (Paris, 1979); idem, "Muhammad DaraShukuh, Bunyanguzar-i Cirfan-i tatbiq-i," !ran Ntmah 1 (1990).49. The Arabic version of MajmaC al-bahrayn by Muhammad Salih ibn Ahmad al-Misri,completed before 1771, is found in the Buhar collection (National Library, Calcutta), MS 133Arabic. The Urdu translation by Gokul Prasad, entitled Nur-i Cayn or Light of the Eye, waslithographeda t Lucknow in 1872. For the Sanskritv ersion, see Roma ChaudhuriA, Critical Studyof Dird Shikuh's Samudra-sangama, 2 vols. (Calcutta, 1954).SQ Majmac_ul-bahraino r The Mingling of the Two Oceans, ed. M. Mahfuz-ul-Haq,( Calcutta,1929); Muntakhabat-i iiasjr-i Muhammad ibn ShdhjahAn Qadir Ddrd Shukuh, ed. MuhammadRiza Jalali Na'ini (Tehran, 1335/1956); MajmaC al-bahrayn, ed. Muhammad Riza Jalali Na'ini(Tehran, 1366/1987-8).51. A. J. Wensinck, "al-Khadir,"S horterE ncyclopaediao f Islam, 232b.52 MajmaCa l-bahrayn, ed. Jalali Na'ini, 2; cf. Mahfuz-ul-Haqe, d. Majmac-ul-bahrain,3 8.Muslim Studies of Hinduism? 187"an attempt to reconcile Hinduism and Islam."53T his simplistic terminology suggestsagain that Hinduism and Islam are monolithic and unchanging hostile essences thatneed to be pacified. Dara Shukuh's interest was in a particular kind of mystical andesoteric knowledge that was shared, in his view, by a small elite within bothcommunities; this he had observed in conversations with Sufis and with accomplishedIndian mystics such as Baba Lacl Das. The Hindu and Muslim masses, however, wereutterly ignorant of this gnosis. Dara Shukuh implicitly accepted the politicizedterminology that equated the Hindu with unbelief or infidelity (kufr), even as hequestioned, from a Sufi perspective, the opposition between infidelity and Islam!4 Hisfocus on esoteric doctrine from a Sufi perspective made his approach to Indian religionhighly selective.Anglo-Persian TextsThe last major category of Persian translations from Sanskrit and other Indian languagesconsists of an extensive series of works commissioned by British colonial officials inIndia, but it may also be expanded to include other Persian translations utilized byEuropeans for the study of Hindu law, religion and cosmology. This phase may beknown for convenience as Anglo-Persian literature. Here at last we have a series of textsthat deal tentatively with "Hindu" or (as it was then known) "Gentoo" religion, from theperspective of religion as understood in Christian Europe. Warren Hastings commissioneda Persian translation of a Sanskrit compendium on Hindu law for the use of EastIndia Company officials, and in 1776 Nathaniel Halhed (d. 1830) produced an Englishversion of this under the title A Code of Gentoo Laws, one of the first translations of aHindu text available in Europe." A Persian paraphrase of the laws of Manu was preparedfor Sir William Jones, and the manuscript contains English and Devanagan marginaliaas well as a piece of doggerel Persian verse by Jones using the pen-name"Yunus."5H6 astings commissioned in 1784 the composition of a Sanskritt ext on chro-53. Mahfuz-ul-Haq, ed., Majmac-ul-bahrain, Introduction, 27; the phrase is repeated by Storey,Persian Literature, 1: 994.54. In the opening lines of MajmaC al-bahrayn, (1), Dara Shukuh quotes a version of a famousverse by the poet Sana&i (d. 1131), "Infidelity and religion (kufr wa din) are both following inyour path, crying, 'He alone, he has no partner!"' This verse is a quotation from the beginning ofthe Sanaci's classic Sufi epic Hadiqat al-haqtqat. In its original context, it is an illustration of theSufi concept of mystical infidelity as non-duality (see my Words of Ecstasy in Sufism [Albany,1985], 63-96). In Dara Shukuh's version, however, the verse reads, "Infidelity and islam," givingit a political character implying Hindu and Islamic communities or doctrines. In this he followedthe same wording (and implications) as Abu al-Fazl, who is said to have engraved this verse on atemple used by Indian "monotheists" (muwahhidun) in Kashmir (Abu'l-Fazl A'Tn, 1: liv-lvi).Ironically, this verse as quoted here by Dara Shukuh was seized upon by Awrangzib as evidenceof his brother's apostasy from Islam, despite its classical origins in the Sufi tradition (see AneesJahan Syed, Aurangzeb in Muntakhab-al lubab [Bombay, 1977], 77).55. Rosanne Rocher, Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life ofNathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751-1830 (Delhi, 1983), 48-72.56. Pertsch, Die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse, no. 1082. Since this curious Persian verse byJones (in the meter of the Shahnamah) may not have been noticed by his biographers, it may beworth translating, as follows: "Act thus with goodness and justice, Yunus, with compassion for188 Ernstnology and cosmology, Puranartha Prakiisa, from which a Persian translation was preparedin 1786 by Zurawar Singh, also on the instructions of Hastings; this in turn wasput into English by Halhed.57 Another untitled work on cosmogony, mythology, andhistory compiled from Sanskrit sources was commissioned by Hastings and composedby one Karparam, of whom Halhed writes that he was "a Moonshy [i.e, munshi orscribe] in the Persian Translator's office at Calcutta. He was well versed in Hindoolearning, and his knowledge of the Persian and Arabic, added to Sanscrit and Bengalee,gave advantage over most of the Pandeets.5"8 Sir John Murrayi n 1796 commissionedan unknown author to compose a Persian work entitled Zakhirat al-fuJad or The Treasuryof the Heart as a work on Hindu religious duties based on "the gastra, the purana,the pandits, and the Veda reciters (bJd-khwdndn)." While this contained informationfrom both scriptural and oral sources on festivals, cosmogony, and castes, it also provideda guide to the tilak marks worn by various religious groups on the forehead, withillustrations.59Regional and sectarian emphases accompanied the encyclopedic tendency in thestudy of Hinduism through Persian. Some Persian translations were produced for JonathanDuncan by Anandaghana "Khwush," who rendered several puranic texts on sacredHindu places of pilgrimage. His lengthy Bahr al-najiat or The Sea of Salvation (completed1794) was taken from the Kds'?-khandsae ction of the Skandap urana, describingthe mythic features of Benares, and his Persian Gayd mahdtmya (1791) concerned thevirtues and rituals of Gaya in Bihar.i' The transitional role of Anandaghana is reflectedby a collection of Persian Sufi poems that he completed at the same time (1794) on themodel of Rumi's MasnavTe, xtolling among other things the virtues of Benares and thethought of Dara Shukuh.6"A number of works on Burmese Buddhism were translatedinto Persian after 1779 from the Mugh language at the instance of Sir John Murray andothers; these included Jataka stories as well as works on law, cosmology, and medicine.62 Some Sanskrit Jain works in Devanagari script, accompanied by commentariesin Persian, were prepared for the French adventurer General Claude Martin in 1796.Andrew Sterling between 1812 and 1821 commissioned an accountant at the Jagannathtemple to write Persian translations of Orissi writings about the temple and on localcreatures and fear of God, / so that after your death, all humanity, in Indian and China, will blessyou. / Your companions will lament over your bier, the Musulman wailing with lacerated breast, /the Brahman reciting the Veda over it, and the Sufi scattering wine over it."57. Eth6, Catalogue of Persian Mansucripts, no. 2003; Rieu, 1: 63-64 (the Sanskrit text is Or.1124, the Persian trans. is Add. 5655, and the English version is Add. 5657, fols. 163-194). Asimilar work composed by Kanchari Singh in 1782 is found in Pertsch, Die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse, no. 1083).58. Rieu, 1: 63 (Add. 5654).59. Pertsch, Die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse, no. 1076; cf. Rieu, Catalogue of PersianManuscripts, 2: 792b/ii. On Murray (d. 1822), who commissioned a number of Persian treatises,see Storey, Persian Literature, 1: 1 145, n. 1; ibid., 2: 375 (works on agriculture).60. Eth, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts, nos. 1959, 1962.61. EthWC, atalogue of Persian Manuscripts,n os. 1725, 2905.62. Pertsch, Die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse, 1089 (Jataka), 1090-91 (law), 1093 (cosmology),1094-95 (medicine).Muslim Studies of Hinduism? 189history.63W orks of a proto-anthropologicalc ast were also produced, prefiguring thelater census categories. Among these was Riyaz al-maz/ihib or The Garden of Religions,which was composed by a Brahmin named Mathuranatha t the request of John Glyn in1812 and dedicated to the Governor-General of India, Lord Moira; this was a descriptionof Hindu castes and sects, as well as religious orders and non-Vedic groups such asJains and Sikhs, and it was found very useful by the early Indologist H. H. Wilson.f' Asimilar work on castes and mendicant orders was compiled by Col. John Skinner in1825 from Sanskrit sources that he had translated to Persian. This curious manuscript,entitled Tashrilh al-aqwiim or The Description of Peoples, contained over one hundredillustrations by native artists.65In addition to the commissioned works, a number of manuscripts of Persian translationsof Sanskrit texts such as the Mahaibhazratba ear the marginal comments of theEnglish officials who owned them. Among such works in the India Office Library, thereare quite a few bearing the comments of Richard Johnson, who acquired several ofthese copies in 1778, and there are even a couple of manuscripts annotated by SirCharles Wilkins (d. 1826), England's first notable Sanskritist after Sir William Jones.Halhed's collection of a dozen annotated Persian translations of Sanskrit texts, someaccompanied by his own English summaries and translations, forms the core of theBritish Library's collection of this branch of literature.This body of translations commissioned by the British is sufficiently large to beindicative of a separate trend and approach to the study of Indian religion, for the specialpurpose of familiarizing British colonial administrators with the religion of theirHindu subjects. This had a practical purpose beyond the concerns of pure historicalscholarship. Witness the project that Sir William Jones took up for the East India Company:the compilation of a digest of Hindu law from Sanskrit texts, for the express purposeof serving as a reliable legal source for personal law in the British-run court system.Not only the Persian translations from the Sanskrit commissioned by the British,but also previous Mughal-era translations (whether belonging to the political or metaphysicalcategories described above), were all subsumed into a single vision of thereligion of the Hindus, from the perspective of the British administratorsw ho used Persianas the language of governance in India. It is often forgotten that Persian, the languageof administration and government revenue records in the Mughal empire, continuedto be the medium of government in the British East India Company until the 1 830s,and in some regions as late as the 1860s. It should not be surprising, then, that figuressuch as Hastings regarded Persian translations as a perfectly adequate basis for establishingtheir knowledge of Hindu religion; they evidently considered it to be a medium63. Pertsch,D ie Handschriften-Verzeichnissen, o. 1078/3-4.64. Rieu, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts, 1: 64 (Add. 24,035); Sayyid CAbd Allah,Adabiyyat-i fiarsr meni Hindii'uii ka hissa, (Delhi, 1942), 215, no. 5. This Urdu study is nowavailable in a Persian translation by Muhammad Aslam Khan, Adabtyit-i farsT dar miydn-iHindavdn (Tehran, 1371/1992).65. Rieu, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts, 1: 65-67 (Add. 27,255); Nora M. Titley, Miniaturesfrom Persian Manuscripts: A Catalogue and Subject Index of Paintings from Persia, Indiaand Turkey in the British Library and the British Museum (London, 1977), no. 372. See further onSkinner and Company art Mildred Archer and Toby Falk, India Revealed: The Art andAdventures of James and William Fraser 1801-35 (London, 1989), index, s.n. Skinner.190 Ernsttransparente nough for their purposes. Nonetheless, the interest of the British administratorsin discovering the textual basis for personal law for Hindus eventually led themto take extraordinarys teps to set up a dyadic opposition between Hinduisma nd Islam.'Until the formation of a solid European tradition of Sanskrit scholarship, the earlierOrientalists continued to rely on these Persian translations as the best available guidesto Hindu philosophy and religion. The Upanishads were initially introduced toEuropeans through several versions of Dara Shukuh's Persian translation: first, thepartial English translation of Halhed in 1782; next, Anquetil Duperron's Latin versionin 1801, which had a significant impact on European thinkers such as Schopenhauer;and then a German translation from Duperron's Latin, completed by Franz Mischel in1882.67 European scholars drew upon Abu al-Fazl's account of Indian philosophy forsome of their earliest descriptions of this subjectP' The Sanskrit collection of storiesabout King Vikramaditya, Singh4isan Battist, was also made known initially through aFrench version of a Mughal-era Persian translation in 1817.69 As late as 1831, a partialEnglish version of the Mahaibhdrataw as made available via the Persian translationsponsored by Akbar.70This period when Persian was the primary mode of access to Hindu religiousthought has been largely forgotten in European scholarship. The next generation of Sanskritistsafter Sir William Jones, particularly British officials such as Sir Charles Wilkinsand H. H. Wilson, were usually still familiar with Persian because of their administrativeinvolvement. Increasingly, however, Sanskrit became a subject unto itself,achieving a high level of academic prestige, particularly in the German universities. Asscholars began to have full and independent access to Sanskrit literature, they soon castaside the earlier interpretationsg ained via the medium of Persian. I would suggest thatthe mode of scholarship that came to dominate the European study of Sanskrit, especiallyoutside of British circles, self-consciously tried to stand apart from the naivepracticality of Halhed and Hastings. Following the model of the Greek and Latin classics,Sanskrit became a classical study; applying the methods of textual criticism developedby Renaissance scholars, Sanskritists began to look for the original textual archetypes,the Ur-text uncorrupted by medieval intrusions. The Persian translations wereseen as inaccurate, biased, and faulty guides, an embarrassment to the serious study oftrue Hinduism. They are now mentioned only as curiosities, or passed over in silence.They are no longer relevant to the modem study of classical Hinduism, which has been66. Rosane Rocher, "British Orientalism in the Eighteenth Century: The Dialectics ofKnowledge and Government," in Carol A. Breckenridge, and Peter van der Veer, ed., Orientalismand the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia (Philadelphia, 1993), 215-49.67. On Duperron's translation, entitled Oupnek'at, id est secretum tegendum, see AnnemarieSchimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, NC, 1975, 361; Bikrama Jit Hasrat, DaraShikuh, Life and Works 2nd ed., (New Delhi, 1982), 255-58.68. J. G. Schweighaeuser, "Sur les sects philosophiques de l'Inde," Archives literaires del'Europe 16 (1807), 193-206.69. M. Lescallier, trans.,V ikramacaritra:L e Trone enchante62 vols. (New York: J. Desnoues,1817).70. David Price, The last days of Krishna and the sons of Pandu from the concluding section ofthe Mahdbhizrata translated from the Persian version made by Naqib Khan, in the time of theEmperor Akbar, published together with miscellaneous translation (London, 1831).Muslim Studies of Hinduism? 191defined precisely as the original Indian religion as distinct from the foreign influence ofIslam. We can see this attitude at work already in Sir William Jones: "My experiencejustifies me in pronouncing that the Mughals have no idea of accurate translation, andgive that name to a mixture of gloss and text with a flimsy paraphraseo f both; that theyare wholly unable, yet always pretend, to write Sanskrit words in Arabic letters; ...from the just severity of this censure I except neither Abul Fazl nor his brother Faizi."7'This classicist approach unfortunately has the side effect of relegating to insignificancethe participation of Hindus in Persianate and Islamicate culture, together with any effectthat this may have had in the development and reinterpretation of Hindu religiousthought.72W hile the period of British sponsorshipo f Persian translationsf rom Sanskritwas brief, perhaps three quarters of a century, it represents a decisive step in the transitiontoward the eventual establishment of Islam and Hinduism as separate fields ofstudy.There are a number of other literary phenomena besides the translations from Sanskritthat challenge the standard notion of fixed boundaries between Hinduism andIslam. Little work has been done, for instance, to study the direct patronage of Sanskritliterature by Muslim rulers.73 While most Sanskrit works dedicated to sultans were belletristiccourt poetry, some Hindu and Jain officials in the employ of Muslim rulerswrote Sanskritr eligious and legal treatises in which they mention their sovereigns.74Afew Sanskrit works can be found that attempt to construct a relationship between Islamand ancient Hindu scriptures. As an example, a short Sanskrit text called the Alla[Allaih] Upanishad was apparently composed by one of Akbar's courtiers, in order toidentify the Muslim deity with the gods of the Vedas, assisted by a combination of theMuslim call to prayer and tantric seed syllables. As late as the nineteenth century, manypandits considered this text a reliable, if obscure, formulation of Vedanta (the curiouspolitical context of this work is indicated by its substitution of "Muhammad Akbar,"i.e., the emperor Akbar, for the Prophet Muhammad). Indian scholars trained in theclassical style of Orientalist scholarship apparently succeeded in eliminating this workfrom the canon of Hindu scripture. R. Mitra in 1871 trenchantly dismissed this work as71. Sir William Jones, Works (London, 1794), 1: 422, quoted by Habibullah, "Medieval Indo-Persian Literature,"1 67.72. The detailed study of European Indology by Raymond Schwab, The Oriental Renaissance:Europe's Rediscovery of India and the East, 1680-1880, trans. Gene Patterson-Black and VictorReinking (New York, 1984), does not address the significance of the Persian translations at all,but stresses in a classicist manner the importance of access to original Sanskrit texts.73. M. M. Patkar, "Mughal Patronage of Sanskrit Learning," Poona Orientalist 3 (1938):164-75; C. H. Chakravarty," Muhammadansa s Patronso f SanskritL earning,"S ahitya ParishadPatrika 44/1; S. Sulaiman Nadwi, "Literary Progress of the Hindus under Muslim Rule," IslamicCulture 12 (1938): 424-33, 13 (1939): 401-26; D. C. Bhattacharyya, "Sanskrit Scholar ofAkbar's Time," Indian Historical Quarterly 13 (1937): 31-36; Jatindra Bimal Chaudhuri, MuslimPatronage to Sanskritic Leaming, part 1 (Calcutta, 1942; reprint Delhi, 1981); S. A. I. Tirmizi,"Sanskrit Chronicler of the Reign of Mahmud Begarah," in Some Aspects of Medieval Gujarat(Delhi, 1968), 45-54.74. Upendra Nath Day, Medieval Malwa, A Political and Cultural History, 1401-1562 (Delhi,1965), 367-70, 422-28, 437-39; M. R. Ranbaore, "Hindu Law in Medieval Deccan," in H. K.Sherwani and P. M. Joshi, eds., History of Medieval Deccan (1295-1724) 2 vols. (Hyderabad,1973-4), 2:529; V. W. Paranjpe Shastri, "Language and Literature-Sanskrit," in ibid., 2: 128-29.192 Ernst"apocryphal," "the gross religious imposition" of a "Muhammadan forger" who wasbetrayedb y incorrectS anskritg rammara nd stylistic inconsistencies.75I would suggest,to the contrary, that such "apocryphal" works could provide an important source forunderstanding the way that Hindus understood Islamic theology and ritual in certainpolitical contexts. Another important area for contact between Hindu and Muslim cultureis the participation of Muslim authors in indigenous Indian literary genres in modemIndian languages. This often resulted in the use of Hindu themes and structures insurprising ways, as in Padmavati, an Eastern Hindi (Awadhi) adaptation of Rajput epicas mystical yogic allegory, written by a Sufi author, Muhammad Ja'isi; here the unexpectedshift is that the Turks are the villains of the piece.76 Since this category ofliterary creation covers a large number of unedited texts in a variety of Indianlanguages, I will only allude to it here in passing as an important topic for research.7 Iam ignoring for the purposes of this discussion the extensive participation by Hinduauthors in secular Persian literature, in which they played important roles in thecomposition of court histories, literary anthologies, and poetry. A sociological study ofthe effects of Persianate culture on the Kayasths and other groups who served Mughaland other Indo-Muslim bureaucracies would be of considerable interest. Anotherimportant topic crying out for treatment is the description of Indian religions byZoroastrian authors in the Dasatiri literature, especially the important seventeenthcenturysurvey of religions called Dabistan-i mazahib.78Of particular significance for the study of religion is a series of original Persianwritings on Indian religion written by Hindus, including doctrinal summaries of "classical"Hindu teachings as well as biographies of figures of the medieval bhakti movements.The eighteenth century seems to have been a particularly rich time for the productionof these Hindu Persian works.79A s an example one may consider Makhzana l-Cifia-n or The Treasury of Gnosis by Rup Narayan, written in 1717 in Lahore as a guideto the holy places of Braj.80A survey of Hindu creeds, festivals, rituals, and asceticpractices, Haft tamashOoi r The Seven Displays, was writteni n 1813 by a Hindu convertto Islam known by the pen-name Qatil, at the request of a learned Shi'i scholar of75. Baibu Rajendralala Mitra, "The Alla Upanishad, a spurious chapter of the Atherva Veda--text, translation, and notes," Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 40 (1871): 170-76.76. Shantanu Phukan, "Through a Persian Prism: Hindi and Padmavat in the MughalImagination,"P h.D. dissertation,U niversity of Chicago, 1999.77. For a brief survey, see Ronald Stuart McGregor, Hindi Literature from its Beginnings tothe Nineteenth Century,A History of Indian LiteratureV IIIV6( Wiesbaden, 1984), 23-24, 26-28,63-73, 150-54; S. M. Pandey, "Kutuban'sM iragavatt: its content and interpretation,"in R. S.McGregor ed., Devotional literature in South Asia: Current research, 1985-1988, (Cambridge,1992), 179-89.78. See most recently M. Athar Ali, "Pursuing an Elusive Seeker of Universal Truth-theIdentity and Environment of the Author of the Dabistan-i Mazahib," JRAS, Series 3, 9 (1999):365-73.79. There is considerable informationo n this topic in CAbdA llah, Adabiyyait-fia rsi. See alsoAhmad Munzavi, Fihrist-i mushtarak-i nuskha-hia-yi kha.tt-yi farsi-yi Paikistan (Islamabad:,1363/1405/1985), 4: 2135-2200, for a comprehensive list of titles and manuscripts of Persianworks on Hinduism, both translations and original works.80. Rieu, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts, 1: 62 (Egerton 1027), copied in 1766.Muslim Studies of Hinduism? 193Lucknow.8' One of the last notable examples of original theological reflection by aHindu in this medium was Raja Ram Mohan Roy (d. 1833), in his Tuhfat almuwahhidu4onrThe Gift of the Monotheists, written in Persian with an Arabic preface.82While some of these texts were written as straightforward expositions of Hindu doctrinesor rituals, others engaged more directly with Islamic religious thought, and in thenineteenth century they even began to take on the form of apologias for Hinduismagainst the stereotyped criticisms found in Muslim polemical literature. To this categorybelong two Persian works composed by Andarman around 1866, Tuhfat al-islrm or TheGift of Islam, and Padash-i islaim or The Revenge of Islam, both written in defense ofHindu religion.83 Also worthy of interest is Madinat al-tahqrq or The City of Demonstration,written by Karparam in Samvat 1932/1875 as a refutation of a Persian workthat attacked Hinduism.84O ne even finds a work called Tahqiq al-tandsukh or TheDemonstration of Reincarnation by Anantram son of Karparam (possibly identical withthe Karparam just mentioned), composed in 1875 clearly as a defense of that doctrinecommonly associated with Hinduism.85 One suspects that these works emerged fromthe climate of religious disputation that resulted from the attacks of Christianmissionaries upon Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism. The fact that they were written inPersian at such a late date may be explained by the continued administrative use ofPersian in the Punjab through the 1860s. Even the least self-conscious of theseproductions necessarily engaged in a complex cross-cultural hermeneutic, by the verychoice of the Persian words used to render technical terms from the vocabulary ofHindu religious texts. This neglected field of literature would seem to be especiallypromising for the study of the concrete relationships that individual Hindu authorsworked out to position themselves in relation to the dominant Indo-Muslim courtculture.Finally, it should not be forgotten that the tradition of Persian Sanskritic learningestablished by Akbar and Dara Shukuh still continues today among a small circle ofIranian scholars. Daryush Shayagan, in addition to his French study of Dara Shukuh,has also written a large survey in Persian on The Religions and Philosophical Schools ofIndia.86 The prolific Muhammad Riza Jalali Na'ini has in collaboration with Indianscholars produced an impressive series of text editions of Persian translations from San-81. Rieu, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts, 1: 64 (Or. 476), copied 1850.82. Abid Ullah Ghazi, "Raja Rammohun Roy (1772-1833): encounter with Islam andChristianity, the articulation of Hindu self-consciousness," Ph.D. dissertation, HarvardUniversity, 1975, 95-98.83. CAbd Allah, Adabiyat-ifairst, 216, no. 10, both found in the Lahore Public Library.84. CAbd Allah, Adabiydt-i forsr, 216, no. 11, where the offensive treatise is identified asTuhfat al-Hind. This seems unlikely, since that work is primarily an account of Indian arts andculture that is not in any way critical; see Mirza Khan ibn Fakhr al-Din Muhammad, Tuhfat al-Hind, ed. Nur al-Hasan Ansari (Tehran, 1354/1975). Perhaps what is meant is the similarlyentitled Hujjat al-Hind of cAli Mihrabi, which consists of a polemical dialogue between two birdson the merits of Hindu mythology and Islam. The dating of the text by the Indian Vikrama orSamvat era, rather than the Islamic calendar, is a telling index of the polemical character of thiswork.85. CAbd Allah, Adabcyit-ifarsr, 216, no. 12, found in Punjab University Library, Lahore.86. Daryush Shayagan, Adyan wa maktab-ha-yifalsafi-yi Hind, 2 vols. (Tehran, 1967).194 Ernstskrit, including works by Dara Shukuh as well as a critical edition of the Mahiibharatatranslation sponsored by Akbar.87 He has in addition authored an original Persiantranslation of the Rig-veda, a study of the Sikh religion, an analysis of Hindu mysticism,a comparative study of language and religion among the ancient Aryans, a reconsiderationof the treatment of Indian religions in Shahrastani's Arabic theological survey, andan edition of Dara Shukuh's Persian translationo f the Bhagavad Gita.88T o this shouldbe added two Sanskrit-Persianle xicons, co-authoredb y Jalali Na'ini and Indians cholarN. S. Shukla.89F athullahM ujtabaiw rote a Harvardd issertationo n the Persian translationof the Yoga Vasistha by Mir Findiriski?0 Outside the circle of scholarly IranianIndologists, the prominent Iranian philosopher Jalal al-Din Ashtiyani has engaged withIndian religions in a series of critical volumes on comparative religion based largely onEuropean scholarship.9 Nur al-Din Chahardihi, an indefatigable researcher on the topicof Islamic esotericism, has also turned his attention to Indian traditions. In addition towriting his own study of yoga (which he practices), he has also reprinted a treatise onyoga and divination called MuhUt-mi acrifat (The Ocean of Gnosis) of Satidasa son ofRam Bha'i "'Arif," written in 1753-4 and published in Lucknow in 1860. This work,containing sixteen chapters on metaphysics, yoga, and divination, is based on the Hindi(Bhak'ha) work Svarodaya of Charana Dasa, pupil of Sukhadevaji, and the translationcontains a considerable amount of sophisticatedP ersian verse.92M odern Persian translationsof literary works by Kalidasa and Tagore have also been published in Iran andAfghanistan.3 In Iran, it seems, there remains a keen interest in Indian religion and87. Besides the previously mentioned editions of Dara Shukuh's Majmac al-bahrayn and theMahdbhdrata, see Dara Shukuh, trans., Upanishdd (Sirr-i akbar), ed. Tara Chand and MuammadRiza Jalali Na&ini2, vols. (Tehran, 1963; reprintT ehran, 1368/1989).88. MuhammadR iza' Jalali Na'ini, GuzFdah-si arad-hi-yi rig vedai( Tehran, 1348/1969); idem,Tarrqa-i Guru Nanak va paydiyt-yi dyin-i Sik (Tehran, 1349/1970); idem, Adab-i tarkqat vakhudizyabT dar Cirfan-i hinda (Tehran, 1347/1968); idem, Khwishdvandi-yi zaban va mazhab-iqadim-i du qawm-i aryai-yiI ran wa Hind (Benares, 1971); Shahrastani,A rra-yHi ind (bakhshta zkitab al-milal wal-nihal, new ed. Mustafa Khaliqdad cAbbasi, ed. Muhammad Riza' Jalali Na'ini,(Tehran, 1349/1970); Dara Shukuh, trans., Bhagavad Grtia, ed. Muhammad Riza' Jalali Na'ini(n.p., 1957).89. Muhammad Riza' Jalali Na'ini and N. S. Shukla, Lughait-i stinskrtt mazkur dar kitab malil-Hind-i CAlIIamBat rint (Tehran, 1353/1975); idem, Farhang-ifa-rstp rakash (farhang-i sanskritbi-fa-rsi) (n.p., 1354/1976); idem, Farhang-i Sanskrft-Fdrsi (Tehran, 1996). Cf. also ChittenjoorKunhan Raja, Persian-Sanskrit grammar, (New Delhi, 1953), and Muhammad cAli Hasani Dacial-Islami, Khwudiamuz-zia biin-i Sanskrit[ Teach YourselfS anskrit]2 nd edition, (Tehran,1 982).90. Fathullah Mujtabai, "Muntakhab-i Jug-basasht or, Selections from the Yoga-vasistha,"Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1976.91. Muhandis Jalal al-Din Ashtiyani, Idial-i bashar; tajziya wa tahlil-i afkar-i Cifan-i biid-smwa jaynFsm, mag,ahib-i hindu, (The Ideals of Humanity: Analysis of the Mystical Thought of theIndian Religions of Buddhism and Jainism,) (Tehran, 1377/1999).92. Carandas Sukhadevji, Svarodaya, Persian trans. from Hindi by Satidasa son of Ram Bha'i';CArif,'"M uhrt-im acrifat (Lucknow, 1860); reprinte d. Nur al-Din ChahardihiA, srar-i panhanT-yimaktab-i yag (Hidden Secrets of Yoga Teaching) (Tehran, 1369/1991).93. Kalidasa, Sakuntala, Persian trans. by Hadi Hasan, Shakuntala ya khattm-i mafqud(Tehran, 1956), also trans. CAli Asghar Hikmat (Delhi, 1957); RabrindranathT agore, Gitanjali,Persian trans. by Ravan Farhadi, Surad-i nayayish (Kabul, 1975).Muslim Studies of Hinduism? 195thought, partially prompted by a sense of the proximity of ancient Indian and Iraniancultures, but which may be expected to continue and resurface in the future.To sum up, then, the translations from Sanskrit into Arabic and Persian fall intofour classes: practical arts and sciences, political works (based on epics), metaphysicaland mystical treatises, and works on Hindu religion and law commissioned by the British.The first three categories, which characterize the translations done for Muslimpatrons, have little to do with the modem concept of religion. It is only when the lens ofthe modem European notion of religion is applied that one can view premodern Muslimsas having had a clear notion of Hinduism. What are the implications of this conclusion?I would suggest that this points to the need further to complicate our picture ofHindu-Muslim interaction, not to derive it from predetermined concepts of the essentialcharacteristics of a religion. If we wish to take account of historical change withinreligious traditions, and to understand the diversity within the traditions that, for convenience,we treat as unitary, then it is important to pay close attention to the historicaland political concerns that inform any individual act of inter-religiousi nterpretationT. ounderstanda multi-centuryp rocess of inter-civilizationali nterpretations, uch as the Arabicand Persian translations from Sanskrit, it is necessary to take seriously the hermeneuticalstructuresa nd categories that guided the efforts of those interpreters.A bove all,it is important to try, as much as possible, to avoid reading anachronistic concepts intopremodern materials. Only then can we fully appreciate the rich density and texture ofthe complex religious patterns that are woven into the life of South Asian culture.